Rafalca's Magical Olympics, Day One: Rafalca Losing To Some Dancing Horses, Beating Others

Your Wonkette knows that it is not allowed to make any lighthearted jokes about the rich presidential candidate and his wife who own a dancing horse that is competing in the Olympics. Americans have no history of making jokes about the playthings of the rich, in this case a German-bred mare. As Mitt Romney says, if we all work hard, we'll all get rich and own dancing horses, and will we want the cretins to rib us then? Right. So here is an objective report of the first Olympics performance from the 15-year-old German-bred mare that dances and is owned by Ann and Mitt Romney.

• Mitt Romney, you'll recall, has said the dancing horse was "Ann's thing" and he didn't know when the dancing horse would begin competition and he had no plans to show up anyway.

• Ann Romney, whose husband Mitt Romney has previously said that he doesn't care about his wife's dancing horse performing in the Olympics and won't watch it, "was in the VIP section of the equestrian stadium at Greenwich Park for Rafalca's competition" today, to cheer for Rafalca.

• The horse did not win this first round, but it didn't totally lose either... there are still a lot of horses that have to dance... and more rounds... we have no idea how good Rafalca's chances are going forward, what does this even mean:

  She and Rafalca's other two owners gave horse and rider Jan Ebeling a rousing standing ovation and a wave as they left the arena. Their score of 70.243 percent put them in 13th place with half the 50 competitors still to go. "She was consistent and elegant," Romney told The Associated Press. "She did not disappoint. She thrilled me to death."

• A quick recap of what the large animal owned by Mitt and Ann Romney does for a living: "The sport is the equine equivalent of ballet. A rider, clad in top hat and tails, takes the horse through a series of steps that look like the horse is dancing: twirling pirouettes, prancing trots and the crowd-pleasing 'flying change,' which looks like the horse is skipping."

• Rafalca will dance again, later.

[ ESPN ]